AKA Herman Theodore Dreiser

Born: 27-Aug-1871
Birthplace: Terre Haute, IN
Died: 28-Dec-1945
Location of death: Hollywood, CA
Cause of death: unspecified
Remains: Buried, Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, CA

Gender: Male
Religion: Roman Catholic [1]
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Novelist

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: An American Tragedy

Early and fervent support for Dreiser's writing was given by critic H. L. Mencken, who did not slack in his praise of Jennie Gerhardt: "In November, 1911, my article in The Smart Set was entitled 'A Novel of the First Rank' and Jennie was its theme, and thereafter, for five or six years, Dreiser was the stick with which I principally flogged the dullards of my country, at least in the field of beautiful letters." (My Life as Author and Editor, p.129)

Father: John Paul Dreiser
Mother: Sara Mary Schnepp
Brother: Paul Dresser (songwriter, b. 21-Apr-1857, d. 30-Jan-1906)
Sister: Emma Dreiser Nelson
Sister: Theresa Dreiser
Sister: Claire
Sister: Mary Frances Dreisser Brennan ("Maime")
Brother: Rome Dreiser
Brother: Edward Dreiser
Wife: Sara Osborne White (m. 1892, separated 1909, d. 1942)
Wife: Helen Patges Richardson (his cousin, m. 1944, until his death)

    University: Indiana University (one year)

    The St. Louis Globe-Democrat
    Communist Party USA Joined 1945
    Emergency Committee for Southern Political Prisoners 1930
    Fortean Society Founding member
    John Reed Club
    League of American Writers Honorary President (1941)
    Traveled to the USSR Oct-1927
    Sedition "criminal syndicalism," Kentucky (16-Nov-1931)
    Nervous Breakdown
    German Ancestry

Is the subject of books:
Theodore Dreiser: Apostle of Nature, 1949, BY: Robert H. Elias
Theodore Dreiser: Our Bitter Patriot, 1962, BY: Charles Shapiro
Dreiser, 1965, BY: W. A. Swanberg
Theodore Dreiser: An Introduction and Interpretation, 1968, BY: John J. McAleer
Two Dreisers, 1969, BY: Ellen Moers

Author of books:
Sister Carrie (1900, novel)
Jennie Gerhardt (1911, novel)
The Financier (1912, novel, Trilogy of Desire)
A Traveler at Forty (1913, travelogue)
The Titan (1914, novel, Trilogy of Desire)
The Genius (1915, novel)
Plays of the Natural and the Supernatural (1916, drama)
A Hoosier Holiday (1916, memoir)
Free and Other Stories (1918, short stories)
The Hand of the Potter (1918, novel)
Twelve Men (1919, nonfiction)
Hey Rub-a-Dub-Dub (1920)
A Book About Myself (1922, memoir)
The Color of a Great City (1923)
An American Tragedy (1925, novel, 2 vols., film A Place in the Sun)
Moods, Cadenced and Declaimed (1926)
Chains (1927)
The Carnegie Works at Pittsburgh (1927)
Dreiser Looks at Russia (1928, nonfiction)
A Gallery of Women (1929)
The Aspirant (1929)
My City (1929)
Epitaph (1929)
Fine Furniture (1930)
Dawn (1931, memoir)
Tragic America (1931, nonfiction)
America Is Worth Saving (1941, nonfiction)
The Bulwark (1946, novel, posthumous)
The Stoic (1947, novel, Trilogy of Desire, posthumous)

New! NNDB MAPPER

Create a map starting with

Theodore Dreiser

Requires Flash 7+ and Javascript.

Do you know something we don't?
Submit a correction or make a comment about this profile

Copyright ©2019 Soylent Communications